If you’ve never heard of a pilot turning around to pick up the passengers who were late catching their flight, that’s because it rarely ever happens.

However, the stars were aligned for the Short family, who just so happened to be getting on a plane that was being flown by a pilot with the biggest heart.

According to Fox 10, the family was trying to make it home to Tennessee to attend their father’s funeral.

Once they got to the terminal in Minneapolis, the family watched as their plane slowly made its way towards the runway. The airline worker told them there was nothing they could do.

“The lady got on the phone and said there was nothing they could do, that the tower wasn’t going to let them pull back in, and my sisters and mom sitting there in tears and I’m screaming through the glass. All of a sudden, another phone call,” Rick Short explains.

Rick, standing in the window, caught the pilot’s attention — he was screaming, crying and waving his hands. But the pilot tells Fox 10 that he didn’t need an explanation, “he saw the tears, the sadness, the desperation on their faces.”